19th and 20th centuries

During the 19th and 20th centuries, Catalonia was one of the main centres of Spanish industrialisation. During these years, the struggle between the Barcelonan conservative industrial bourgeoisie and the working class dominated Catalan politics, as it did elsewhere in Europe during the industrialisation process. In Catalonia this situation was nuanced by the fact that immigrants from the rest of the Spain were an increasing portion of the workers, since the local workforce was not enough to cover the demands of a rising economy.

Catalan nationalist and federalist movements arose in the nineteenth century, and when the Second Republic was declared in 1931, Catalonia became an autonomous region. Following the fall of the Second Republic after the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39, the dictatorship of GeneralFrancisco......Read More